"Stede wanted to be a pirate and now he's not going to be one, which is bad."
Did he really want to be a pirate? Stede wanted to be a storybook pirate; he wanted to be the pirate in his games and his imagination, who had swashbuckling adventures. The entire first season deals with him learning what piracy really is. He sees what it has done to Ed, quite literally history's greatest pirate, within the first half hour of their meeting. Most of the fun he has, has nothing to do with actual piracy - it's playing games with his crew, going on treasure hunts with Ed, putting on plays. He likes making up plans, but he doesn't like actual piracy. When he accidentally kills a man, it horrifies him and haunts him, and continues to until the end of the season. He goes to therapy about it.
Into Season 2, the entire point of Stede's piracy is still not piracy. It's to get back to Ed. Stede's fantasy in the beginning is about being the storybook pirate who defeats the villain and runs across the beach to his one true love, who isn't mad at him and never was. It's a fairytale. And even there, reality is creeping in - dream-Izzy tells him, "I didn't make you leave him. You did that yourself." The reality is that Ed has gone into a suicidal spiral, and Stede finds him mostly dead.
The one time that Stede becomes a "real pirate" in the real world, it goes to his head, but it's not even because of his love of piracy. It's because he's suddenly popular. People are buying him drinks and clapping him on the back. No one's calling him "Steve." No one's making fun of him. And still, the only thing he wants to do when he does something cool is go tell Ed about it.
And even then...it's hollow. Everyone around him are sycophants. Ed has left him. His crew are suddenly leaving him. It all ends with him getting his ass kicked by a real pirate. He didn't even like doing the thing that made him popular; he kills Ned Low and runs off to hide. The whole sequence at Jackie'z is a mirror of the sequence at the pub when he goes home - everyone thinks he's cool, but for none of the reasons that are authentic to who he is or what he really wants.
Stede wanted a family who loved him. He wanted friends who liked him for him. He wanted someone to play with. He wanted to marry for love. And he has all those things at the end.
He's not a pirate. He's not having second thoughts.
I'm not sure why this is hard to see.
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hi!
I don’t actually really know how to apply any ND knowledge.
I know that there is nothing to do, but everybody seems to get the hang of it somehow and I just don’t.
I can’t really see the difference between my ego saying that everything is perfect or ME saying it. I try to remember that I am Self and I don’t need anything because it is perfect, but I don’t feel as if I am progressing.
I feel as if I am not applying anything I have learned properly. Any advice?
"I don’t actually really know how to apply any ND knowledge."
here's a practical guide.
all you need to do is act from this.
take it seriously. really remind yourself of it.
getting annoyed? 'this is not me, but the character'
walking outside? 'oh wow its kinda crazy this is just a dream'
making food? 'rice only exists because of my thought of it, i wonder what would happen if i stopped thinking of rice's existence lol'
seeing people talk on the phone? 'that body and life is also mine...'
"but I don’t feel as if I am progressing."
let go of the idea of progressing. just allow yourself to be. do you see that you want vanessa to see that shes Self? vanessa wants progress. Self already is.
edit: if can't detach from everything, then accept more. accept more bodies and circumstances. get used to really pondering over 'wow that culture, way of life, style etc is also mine'. by accepting more, you'll end up negating what you aren't - a body-mind. bcs there's no way you can be all the bodies but are stuck to one clump of cells and a thought.
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queer signalling: louis and harry living their beautiful queer lives, collected by me
since we must take note of our fellow queers when they signal that they are very much one of us, despite being closeted. since i've had a very very queer few years thanks to them, thanks to their signalling, thanks to them being brave.
(!! this list isn't exhaustive, and if i've forgotten your favorite, by all means let me know. there's always room for another edition. it's been a while since i made a compilation and felt there was a need of a new one on my blog. this one goes a few years back, since my last one dates from 2021 :'o. so yeah. here we go.)
harry in my policeman, playing a closeted queer man, based on the book that's long been one of his favorites. lauded by the director and co-stars for how well he portrayed this character, how well he understood.
harry wearing a green flower on his chest for the mp premiere, placing himself (once again) in the same line of history as oscar wilde.
louis's green flowers on his initial 28clothing jersey at the first afhf, which includes bonus roses and 28s all around
the entire late night talking mv bc!!!!!
louis's rainbow stage lights during sibwawc. he really did that. every single night.
the entire dazed magazine happening. “I’ve always tried to compartmentalise my personal life and my working life,” he explains. / “I have unlocked an ability to be myself completely, unapologetically,” he says with conviction." / “I think through my own sense of self and personal journey, I am realising that happiness isn’t this kind of end state.”
louis's gay exit songs: most notably 'ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn't've)'
harry flirting with stanley tucci
louis and his gay ass tank tops !!! we must point it out !!!!!!
all along
harry kissing a pride flag during harry's house ono in nyc
rainbow flare during the btm mv
harry being gifted a mask of his own face at munich n2, which prompted him to say that he feels like he's wearing a mask sometimes
28 in a triangle for 28clothing!!!!!!!!
kit connor soft launching 28 clothing. a young actor starring in a queer coming-of-age series, who was forced to come out after being accused of queerbaiting. he was the first one, besides louis, to wear 28clothing
harry's grammy's speech "people like me" (which ppl sadly misunderstood), echoing what he's been saying on tour for years. this doesn't happen to people like him. if they only knew, right?
harry's freddie-inspired outfit for the grammy carpet (which also brought back his theme for clown/jester fits, like harryween 2021 n2. wonder why)
louis's merch graphic where a boy is trying to smash a glass ceiling
harry posing for david hockney, actual living legend, gay artist of the ages. "Styles seems to know how lucky he is, adding, with a tinge of disbelief: “I’m in awe of the man with enough one-liners for a lifetime.” As to what those one-liners might be? Styles and Hockney’s mutual silence on that question suggests that what happens in the studio, stays in the studio."
louis having suspicious visuals during back to you, the only visuals of that type on tour
harry's 2022 harryween outfit: dressed as danny (literally. he did that. he went grease on us.) but wearing sandy's jacket
louis at barricade aka held safely in the arms of strong security personnel
harry singing man, i feel like a woman and still the one with shania twain. while wearing a rainbow discoball jumpsuit (parallel with kacey musgraves wearing a rainbow dress to sing it with him years ago.)
louis's gay ass merch for the away from home festival
harry dressed in nina ricci by harris reed, an explicitly gender-fluid line. "At 18 I found myself living in london creating ruffle blouses, corsets, fabric flowers and flares from my kitchen floor (...). My creations at the time were met with nothing but criticism for being “too feminine” or “costume”, teachers said I should focus on “menswear” or “womenswear”. l remember it really wasn’t until I started dressing for myself and who I was that it all clicked. @harrystyles was my first ever client who embraced the fun, fluid and expressive clothing I was creating."
continuous bluegreening. to name a few: harry's werchter fit, all this time lights, satellite caps in two colors only, louis's smiley flickering bluegreen on tour in 2022, the james cordon shit, louis in uncasville. enjoy this post here
harry's snl shoot unseens: him as ariel
louis out in amsterdam at a gay bar
harry going to the women's only swimming pond (on a day it was open for men, but this is important to me okay)
harry's use of orchids in his visuals during 'she' during love on tour '23
the 'hairy mermaid' tour visuals
harry as a mermaid during the mfasr mv. as a supreme physical manifestation of harry as the mermaid he truly is inside. but in his true form he gets chopped up and consumed. literally
as it was mv and its parallels with the matrix, hints to harry as the woman with the red dress.
louis jumping up on barricade against the one spot where a pride flag was draped over it
oh yeah that exact same thing happened in 2022 too
harry forming a skirt with a pride flag in brasil after his pants ripped
that gay ass denim getup with the fur collar?? while wearing the fucking peace ring????
harry and phoebe breaking gender norms in the tpwk mv dance. no i'm not over it yet shut up
louis wearing a basquiat t-shirt, another famously queer artist joining the ranks
harry bought an actual genuine basquiat. flex
harry dressed in skirts for gucci
"happy pride! happy pride! 'tis the season! can you tell i'm relaxed?"
"isn't all of this sparkly bi music?"
satellite mv rainbow planet tshirt
louis's bigger than me promo where he's literally george michael like??? IM SORRY???????
harry kissing lewis capaldi at the brits
harry kissing nick kroll at the dwd premiere. lol
and... harry as friend of D O R O T H Y. sang over the rainbow. we all cried. especially me at this clip of harry glancing in relief at his band after over the rainbow.
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hey so I'm literally starting to hate the word "radical" in its political usage.
it is not radical to think that people deserve food and clean water.
it is not radical to think that people deserve safe housing, full stop.
it is not radical to think that bodily autonomy is a human right.
it is not radical to think that queer and trans folks should be allowed to exist comfortably and happily, be allowed to marry each other, and have access to medical care, gender-affirming or otherwise.
it is not radical to think that children shouldn't be going into debt over school lunches.
it is not radical to think that education should be free.
it is not radical to think that nobody should have to die of preventable/treatable illnesses.
it is not radical to think that poverty shouldn't fucking exist.
belief in basic human rights and dignities for everyone that exists is not a radical stance, we're a cooperative species, we are LITERALLY built to care for and help each other.
attaching the term "radical" to any stance that approaches compassionate and decent is a tool of the oppressor class, and we are literally 200 years behind the curve. we HAVE to re-frame the way we talk about these things and throw the fucking shackles off.
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au where jedi healers take a vow not unlike jedi temple guards, but instead of wearing a mask and becoming anonymous, they give up their sight and wear blindfolds to allow the Force to guide their every action. it’s also supposed to blind them to their patients’ differences, which used to be symbolic but since the war between the jedi and the sith broke out, has become much less so
because jedi healers are supposed to heal regardless of if their patient is a jedi or a sith, when they’re deployed on battlefields after the fighting is over, they use the Force to heal every injured person they come upon.
anakin skywalker, who was chosen from the creche and agreed to follow the Healing path at the age of 9, thinks it’s sort of stupid that they have to wait until after the fighting is over to begin to help because he can feel people dying in the Force, he can feel their pain--
young general kenobi, who remembers his old creche-mate anakin skywalker and how blue his eyes once were, thinks it’s beyond foolhardy that this healer is stealing out across an active battlefield, blindfold over his eyes and bending down to heal karking darth maul and single-handedly diverting all of obi-wan’s attention away from the droids and sith legion because now he has to make sure he’s ok he can’t just leave him to the whims of the Force, he’s unprotected and he’s going to get himself killed----
it’s a headache and a half for everyone involved because general kenobi keeps abandoning his battle strategy and sometimes even position to ensure healer skywalker’s safety and healer skywalker keeps dropping everything and everyone the moment he feels obi-wan kenobi get hurt in the Force to rush to his side, Force Vow of Healing Equality be damned.
but......the Council keeps deploying them to the same battlefield because healer skywalker is never more effective as when he knows he must heal fifty mortal wounds before he can rid general kenobi of a headache, and general kenobi is never as ruthless as when skywalker is on the field close to him, in potential harm’s way
despite how much they insist they hate each other
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